Question of the Day

Whose side of the story do you believe?

Story TOpics

Thousands of employees of the U.N agency for Palestinian refugees demonstrate in support of their organization following U.S. funding cuts in Gaza City, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018. Earlier this month, the Trump administration slashed $60 million of a planned $125 ... more >

The Palestinians, perhaps in the spirit of the approaching Passover season, have revived the ancient “blood libel” accusing the Jews of using the blood of Christian babies in their recipe for matzos.

This time the Jews are accused only of the massacre of Islamic children. The libel is updated from the Middle Ages and it could only find a market today in the dark neighborhoods of the Middle East.

“The occupation government,” says a narrator on the official Palestinian Authority television network, “which claims it is democratic and has won the support of some of the world’s superpowers, has built itself on the bodies of children and it murders, imprisons and tortures them with the most extreme types of torture.” Parents are warned not to let their children venture far from home lest they be kidnapped by evil Jews.

Official Palestinian voices accuse the Israeli Defense Force of summarily “executing” children for throwing rocks at passing cars. “These are considered war crimes.”

There’s always a ready market in those miserable neighborhoods for fairy tales, some more gruesome than anything Grimm devised, and others merely worth a chuckle. There’s the story about a man in an Arab village who was trying to get a nap on a summer’s afternoon, but the noise of the village children kept sleep away.

“Look, children,” he finally told them, “there’s a man at the other end of the village who is giving away large, sweet melons. Don’t waste your time here.”

The children ran away with squeals of delight, and the man leaned against a tree and started to drift slowly to sleep. Suddenly, he bolted awake, and ran after the squealing children. “What am I doing here, sleeping,” he cried, “when they’re giving away sweet melons at the village gate!”